


And If, When the Dust Has Settled...

by sparklight



Category: Transformers (Dreamwave Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Harm to Children, Original Character Death(s), Psychological Trauma, brief descriptions of a city being slaughtered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prowl and Bluestreak survive the razing and subsequent massacre of Praxus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And If, When the Dust Has Settled...

It was late when they struck.

It was late enough that Prowl was one of the few left at headquarters besides the last night shift, making a last check of the confiscated items vault against their inventory. It was a nice, relaxing task that was still necessary, and Prowl had no thought of going home for necessary and deserved recharge yet. The first sign he had that something was at all _wrong_ was the sudden, sharp fuzz of static over the emergency report band.

"... High Alert?" Prowl didn't even look away from his datapad or the current row of shelves he was going through as he pinged the night officer in charge, but when all he got was another shriek of static, he looked up, frowning.

Switched bands to a secondary official frequency that was used if the main one was under high load, which hadn't happened more than once or twice since Prowl had joined the peace keepers. They hadn't had any indication of a rise in traffic, statistics were normal for the last half of the solar cycle, but an emergency _could_ have happened.

Static.

A third attempt, this time a private frequency directly to High Alert as they often ended up at headquarters alone and the mech had given him the frequency key so they wouldn't litter up the official or inter-office frequencies. They ended up with overlapping shifts often enough High Alert joked Prowl should just switch to this shift with him, which just got a snort and an invite to share a cube later, since, after all, they were both here together and the patrols were out, so it'd be silly to refuel alone, right?

"High---" This time, he didn't even finish as the squeal of interference had him clutching at the external part of his audio receptor suite, wincing. Jamming. But who was jamming on _all_ frequencies? Could be there was a severe malfunction in the communications towers, or it meant a large-scale criminal operation of a magnitude that would be incredible, or... Or the troubles in Kaon had reached them. 

The attacks hadn't even touched Praxus' southern continental border yet, and Tyger Pax was mostly untouched, though refugees were moving from the south where the city-state's continent bordered on Kaon to the north where they'd be out of reach.

Prowl turned around as the light fixtures flickered throughout the vault, and then the walls trembled.

A few seconds later, the noise went up through the stabilisers in his feet, an insidiously subtle vibration he hardly even noticed before he tried to run for the door and fell as his joints seized up. And despite the echoing clatter of his frame hitting the floor, confiscated items raining around him, he could hear the automatic lock on the vault snap shut as it always did in the case of a power failure or the headquarters' doors being breached when they were locked against the public during the night.

Getting up, first on hands and knees and then upright, another distant, muted explosion rocked the fourth-level vault and Prowl slammed against the row of shelves opposite to the ones he'd been going through, boxes of illegal crystals, powders, circuit boosters and doctored rust sticks bouncing off his shoulders, stabilising wings, and helm.

The explosions must be truly _massive_ if they could be felt all the way down here, in a reinforced vault on Praxus' last level.

The thought was crystal clear in the silence in his processors, and Prowl _knew_ he should be hearing his engine, his ventilations, the subtle shift and slide of armour moving against itself, the movement of pistons - his _spark pulse_ , but it all seemed very... distant. Annoyed, he took a deep in-vent, _concentrated_ on the sound itself, rearranged priorities and slowly the stiff stillness dropped away.

The vault would be locked, but he couldn't just _sit here_ so he would make an attempt anyway---

And then the jamming was suddenly dropped.

::---going on? Everything's gone, just---::

::We can't go _that way_ , the Helix Gardens are---::

::---lease, get help! You need to---::

::Why are they doing this? _Who_ is doing this? It can't be the---::

:: _Chargelight_! Can you hea---::

Any pretense at regained equilibrium disappeared in the deluge of scattered comm conversations he had to wade through while trying to ping the mech he _knew_ should be closest to him.

::---It just _imploded_! What do we even do? What _can_ we d---::

:: _High Alert_!:: Prowl was surprised to hear static over the comm that had nothing to do with interference and all to do with his frazzled thoughts interfering with clear communication. Calm down. It was something easier said than done however as he tentatively stood up again and caught his hand trembling where it gripped onto mostly empty shelves.

::... P-szzch--rowl. You're still... still in the vault, right?:: Even over the comm frequency, High Alert's voice sounded... much too thin, lacking his usual rolling warmth, not to talk about the underlying static.

::I never came over with the cubes, did I? Never mind _that_ , your status?:: Facts were simple to deal with, and this was a fact he _cared a lot_ about.

There was silence for nearly a full klik, and by that time Prowl had crossed the vault and tried to open the door.

Locked, of course.

::... High Alert?::

::I want you to tell me you're in the vault first.::

Optics flickering, Prowl frowned at the closed and locked door and crossed his arms underneath the swell of his chestplates.

::Yes, fine, I _am_ in the vault. It looks like a mess now, too. _Now_ will you tell me?:: Prowl couldn't quite keep the snap in, and when static was the first thing he got back, he almost thought High Alert had closed the convo on him.

::--Ksshrushed leg from part of the wall collapsing. Seekers flew by, blew out all the windows and part of the... wall too.:: High Alert's desk was by the windows. ::And then somebody must've bombed us, 'cause I gotta tell you, I'm not built to take half a building fallinzzsk on me,:: High Alert chuckled, a noise that lacked the usual cheery tone as static and feedback rampaged through it instead.

::It's... it's those... er, _Decepticons_ , then? Can you reach the override for the vault door?::

::Ain't seen anyone close up to tell, and mech, I _overrode_ theffnh override. It'll open in... in about a joor. Hopefully the place'll be empty by then.::

Staring at the door, Prowl replayed what just had been said, just to make sure he'd heard _correctly_. He couldn't _be serious_!

::Open the blasted vault doors, High Alert!:: the yell crackled over the frequency and slipped out verbally as well, echoing loudly in the silent vault as Prowl slapped his hand on the opening panel again and got a huffy declining beep in response. Jerkily, he yanked out the cables in the back of his neck and when the access panel refused to open, tore it open instead.

::No. You're--- _stay down there_ , Prowl! Nothing doing, and I might even survive, who knows? But you _gotta stay down there_ , you hear me?:: High Alert's native tang from his southern Praxian accent made a sudden appearance, but Prowl huffed.

::You need a _hospital_ , so open this door or by the Matrix I'm going to _hack i_ \---::

::Company. Don't let me catch you following my tail-lights into the Well if this slagger gets me, you hear me? And _stay down there_!:: High Alert growled at him and then promptly disconnected. The frequency spat static at him for several seconds after while Prowl stared at the opening panel, its dim red glow bright in the darkness of the vault.

::High Alert? _High Aler_ \---::

::We're sorry to inform you the frequency on the recipient's end has been erased. Please contact the recipient to establish a new frequency.:: The polite, cool tones of the automatic message slashed through his thoughts like lightning, and the next thing he was aware of was the bright green chronometer in the edge of his visual field. A breem flicking over into a fresh one, and the last time he'd seen it, it'd been nearly a full breem until a new one ought to have been counted.

Frequency erased, not ping rejected or call terminated. 

Erased.

High Alert had erased the full contents of his comm. suite. Did he really think whoever was doing this would go through the recent calls of anyone they killed to... to find... 

Survivors?

Those who might be hidden?

Would there _be_ survivors?

The punch his threw at the door rattled through his hand, up his arm and sent a sharp jolt of pain through him as tactile and pressure sensor nodes were abused. The door, however, remained without even the smallest of dents, though there might have been a scratch or two. His knuckles were definitely dented, either way.

Flexing his hand, Prowl tugged his jack out of the port of the bared access panel and backed away from the door until he hit the first row of shelves, his altmode's stabilising wings digging into the metal as he sat down. The cable trailed from the back of his neck, over his chestplates and dangled down from the front, down between his knees.

He should tuck that back in.

Instead, he stared at the slight twitching of the cable that marked its slow swing between his knees, the light from his optics silvering the black of his metal pale blue, and turning the white bluish. He wasn't sure how long he sat like that as he didn't bother checking the chronometer, but long enough for the cable to stop swinging when he finally pulled out his service blaster and started to look it over in the light from his optics and altmode's lights. It was a dinky thing, maybe there was something better here in the vault..?

A joor wasn't a long time, but the allotted time still crawled out, marked by a few more distant explosions that trembled through the walls and down along the floor up into Prowl's frame, and muddled, feedback-crackling open comm calls as no one had the presence of mind to use private frequencies. He did his best not to listen to those piece-meal, broken conversations while he continuously picked his blaster apart and then reassembled it. It was hard, however. There were cries for help, attempts to hail emergency services that wouldn't, couldn't respond, attempts to localise collegues, friends, lovers...

It was late night when Praxus fell, a late that was inching into early when the door to the vault that held the peace keepers' confiscated items unlocked.

A door that opened into settling metal-filing dust and electrical wire fires in a ruin that didn't really look like the (former) headquarters for the peace keepers of Praxus. He couldn't _quite_ run up the emergency stairs as the stairwell was partly collapsed but still probably in better condition than the lift, but Prowl managed quite well nonetheless.

"High Al---!" He didn't have to get up to the floor where High Alert had his desk.

Instead Prowl found himself kneeling on the reception floor, two levels beneath the twelfth floor where High Alert _had been_ earlier this night. 

High Alert still had traces of his red and black colours, but they seemed to fade even as Prowl (needlessly, he could see that, all too needlessly) looked at the burned open chestplates and then checked for fuel pump activity in the vain hope that there might be _something_ left... But with the way High Alert's abdomen was ripped up, it was clear that even without the multiple shots through his chestplates and helm, he'd have drained out sometime during the night.

But draining out might have given High Alert more time before his spark, even withdrawn to the spark chamber to conserve energy and lighten the strain, would've started to extinguish. There hadn't ever been even that hope, though. Not with these injuries.

A few feet away from High Alert's... corpse, the crushed remains of his service blaster lay. Apparently whoever had found him had taken _offense_ to being shot at with the standard-issue, suppression blaster that peace keepers were issued with as part of their service.

Clutching the slack hand until the servos in his fingers protested and he could feel the greying metal in High Alert's hand denting, Prowl looked around the reception floor, caught the shadows of a few collapsed frames on the street outside of the door and looked away. There was nowhere safe to rest his optics, nowhere that didn't cause a flood of charge through his circuits in response.

He needed a better weapon than his service blaster, as he'd thought earlier. It was meant to suppress and stun, not injure or kill, and if there were still any of their attackers wandering around...

Carefully, Prowl laid High Alert on his back, hands laced together over his chestplates to cover the burnt out hole that bared the (empty) spark chamber for all to see, stood up and retraced his steps down six floors and two whole city levels, back to the vault.

As he picked up two blasters confiscated from two overcharged joydrivers who'd decided to have a "duel" on the Triple Overway that led to Tyger Pax and Protihex a giga-cycle ago, Prowl noted that the wiring around his spark chamber ached. He knew that wasn't possible though - well, besides the fact that he'd probably flooded and drained a lot of energy through the latticework of wiring too many times in the last joor for there to be _no_ effect on his frame.

Dragging a hand down his faceplate, Prowl went through the vault and, sure enough, the photon-laser cannon they'd found in a weapon-smuggling operation three solar cycles ago was still there.

The other weapons of that operation they'd sent off to Iacon with their greater processing ability, but the cannon had been more heavy duty than anything else they'd found and they'd been requested to hold it until an officer could come pick it up in the metal.

Gingerly, Prowl lifted the huge weapon out of the case it'd been stowed in and then almost put it back because _how_ would he...

No. Lips firming and optics narrowing, Prowl slung the cannon along his side and carefully went back up again, noting several worrying cracks and that the steps creaked and sagged in some places just as he stepped off them. That would have to be fixed---

Fixed.

He ended up slumped against the doorway staring at High Alert's offline frame as that thought went into a loop which the previously established priority queue couldn't break through until a flash of light winked off the broken windows outside. There would be no fixing this. _Nothing_ could fix what had happened here. Shaking his helm, Prowl straightened and strode past the greyed out husk on the floor, out the door...

And around the offline frames of Rockhopper, Redlight and Whiteout, the night shift patrol.

A few steps beyond them, Prowl turned back and shifted them all so he could cover their burned-out spark chambers with their hands, a task that was simple for Redlight and Whiteout as they were minibots, and only a minimal amount of work needed with Rockhopper, as he and the hover-alt mech were of a size.

He couldn't do this for _everyone_ he encountered, but leaving colleagues fallen where they had, helms burned into molten slag and chestplates shot through or even _crushed_ by being stomped through in Redlight's case, didn't seem right. _Wasn't_ right.

Shifting his stabilising wings up from their drooping position, Prowl readied one of the two blasters he'd taken and rested a hand on the cannon, picking his way down the street.

Driving would have been faster of course, but it would also make more noise, so it was ruled out until he knew it was safe.

Safer, if that's a thing that could ever happen again.

The streets were still cloaked in a soft twilight, but the tops of the buildings that rose up the two levels above to the surface were drenched in pinkish-golden early dawn. Drifting veils of smoke didn't leave much of a view for the sky where it would normally have been seen, and the crackle of electrical wire fire was loud in what seemed a city deserted of anything but death and crumbling, smouldering metal and corpses.

So many greyed out, offline frames. He could hardly walk the length of his own frame or turn a corner for all the corpses everywhere.

Some had clearly been dragged out into the streets, others shot from behind or, by the way they'd not just fallen backwards but seemed to have slid along the ground, been shot from a distance at high velocity; probably aerials shooting at fleeing victims.

He thought he caught movement as he worked himself through the rubble, but no one attacked him which probably meant they were survivors and he couldn't fault them for not approaching him. Carrying the emblem of the peace keepers or not, considering the armaments he was carrying now he probably wouldn't approach himself either. But _putting the weapons down_ until it was clear the city was empty of attackers seemed... unwise.

All he found as he worked himself upwards however, was ruins, fire, melting, smouldering metals, and the dead.

When sunlight fell on his faceplate as he got up to the top level of the city, dawn was over and the suns were firmly in the sky, drenching everything in a veneer of gilding that seemed grotesque in the stillness.

"... By the Matrix." 

He'd emerged topside on the eastern edge of the Helix Gardens - or what had _been_ the Gardens, anyway. What it was now was a smoking, pockmarked wasteland littered with shards that reflected light. Gas exploded intermittently still, and there was a blue haze in the air of the Helix Gardens from the gas that lingered. On the horizon, opposite of the wasted Gardens, was a landmark Prowl at first didn't recognise.

And then, the longer he stood there staring, gaze wandering over the ravaged Gardens and back to the lump opposite it, he understood what the thing was.

It now looked like a giant circle (obvious only by the way it curved at its edges), but it was the Assembly. The whole center of the dome had collapsed, and greenish-black smoke rose from it.

As if drawn, Prowl started towards the building, cutting through the Gardens.

It wasn't a good idea, considering the methane was still exploding and pockets of fire were spread out on the vast grounds, but he couldn't _not_.

The crystals rang with a million cracked voices as he shuffled over broken and cracked walkways and bared, broken pipework that had led the methane to the bowls, fixtures and platforms where the crystals formerly had been suspended in the gas.

It seemed every step brought a tinkling, humming and crackling disharmony, but it seemed right. The Helix Gardens had been suffused with sounds that seemed to have vibrated with the very sparks of the visitors; harmony, peace and a murmuring warmth that had no counterpart anywhere except for a particular tone in one spot in the Sonic Canyons - but actually noticing that it was there was hard.

Now, though...

Now the noise bled sharp and broken, and his spark quailed along with it. Literally, as his spark pulse seemed to stutter and shift with every step he took through the crystals, created brief, shooting cold through his frame, which was obviously _dangerous_. He couldn't find it in himself to care.

He even walked past a group of three mechs, shuffling along as he was, their optics dim and helms bent. They carried standard-issue peace keeper blasters and a slightly bent rifle probably taken from someone else.

Their optics didn't so much meet as slide past each other in a mute, flat acknowledgement and Prowl continued towards the collapsed structure of the Assembly while the three went westwards, their hands intertwined and denting the metal, not a single word exchanged between them. Safety might be in numbers, but none of them were looking for _safety_.

This wasn't about getting out, getting _safe_ , not yet anyway.

This was _mourning_.

As he came closer and the suns rose, the lesser sun slid into a position that made the light cut through the smoke drifting around the Assembly and fall into cracks latticing out over its side---

No.

Those weren't _cracks_ , but rather a bold and obvious statement of _who was guilty_.

Burned into the side of the Assembly were neat, sooty scores that formed a sigil Prowl had so far only seen in news reports; the insignia of the so-called Decepticons. The Assembly, a nexus of culture from all over Cybertron and there was not a type of entertainment or art that couldn't be found in the Assembly, if only to _represent_ it... And these... Decepticons... had gone out of their way not just to wipe it out, but to put their mark on the shattered remains. A warning? Admonishment? It didn't matter.

Prowl tightened his hand around the stock of the gun, staring at the shadow-and-light carved insignia as something shifted inside of him and seemed to light a fire inside - stared until something cracked, and he lost his grip on the gun as the stock went to pieces.

Bad make.

Teeth gritted, he pulled out the second one and started walking again with far more force in his steps than necessary. There must be some sort of organised _resistance_ against these Decepticons, right? _Somewhere_ there must be something like that, and if not, one must be formed soon. They couldn't just let themselves be _walked all over_ and crushed like Praxus had been simply because their city-state was a beacon of Cybertronian culture and science. Or maybe it was the tolerance, the show of unification the Decepticons had wanted to crush by destroying Praxus?

Right before he stepped out of the Gardens, now under the shadow of the razed Assembly, Prowl knelt down and let his fingers slide over the crystal shards until one caught against the metal of his fingers. Instead of yanking his hand away, he curled it around the shard and stood up.

Jagged, the shard had bit into his fingers deep enough to leave fresh scores that would take either time and self-repair, or some time and real effort with a buffer to even start to smooth them down.

It didn't matter. The important thing was that it had caught, a reminder of all things that had broken today---

Noise?

Helm jerking up, Prowl looked around, but after the harsh reflections and sun-drenched expanse of the wasted Gardens, the shadows cast by the Assembly were disorienting. He was, however, definitely hearing someone _talk_.

... Or rather, more like ramble.

Tucking the little shard away, Prowl lengthened his steps and adjusted his visual feed until he found what he was more hearing than looking for; a mech, partly caught under a piece of wall, reaching for another just out of reach.

And, Prowl saw when he came closer, the second was still... and more than that, offline. Actively killed, not passively so by rubble or falling building materials. Killed, right in front of his... friend? Collegue? Lover? It didn't matter, because in a situation like this, the offline mech could probably have been a stranger and they could have bonded before he was killed.

The mech didn't so much as look at him until he squatted down beside him. He looked up then, red optics so wide it was a wonder the glass wasn't popping out of its insets - and all Prowl could see was 'young'.

The stabilising wings barely peeking out from under the rubble were crumpled and crushed, his legs were a twisted mess and he was covered in dust and soot, but this.

This was a protoform, probably no older than a stellar cycle or two.

Somebody.

Had killed.

The protoform's mentor.

Right.

In front of him.

"Hey sorry to bother you and you're carrying an awful lot of weapons and if you're gonna shoot me could you do it quickly but could you help my mentor first because he _really_ needs a medic or... or could you maybe also get this off me because it's awful heavy and I can't feel my wings or my legs and I just---"

It took a moment to catch on to the veritable rush of words, the protoform's optics still so very wide and it was obvious he'd been talking to his caretaker all this time. Carefully putting the gun down and then the cannon, Prowl laid a hand on the protoform's arm since it looked uninjured enough for that to be safe.

"I'll get you loose and then we'll make sure your caretaker's comfortable, how's that sound? What's your designation?" He left his hand where it was as long as he could, keeping his voice low and even as he spoke, but finally had to let go to get a good grip on the thick sheet of metal to heave it off the protoform.

"Oh! I'm Bluestreak! It's 'cause I'm really fast you see and Flicker always had to run to keep up so I wouldn't get lost and you would do that? Until the medics come? Because I don't want him to hurt anymore until he can get help and I _really_ can't feel my legs and my wings hurt and I just don't--- don't---" 

It wasn't until the sheet of metal tumbled over its side, sending a cloud of dust and a rolling, thunderous echo through the shadows and Prowl knelt by Bluestreak again, helping him into a sitting position, that the ramble trailed off, and then got... stuck.

The red optics were so bright they were more white than even pink by now, and Prowl reached over and carefully laid his hand on Bluestreak's helm.

"Just let me get Flicker comfortable, all right?" Calm. Quiet. Slow. Those three words echoed through his processor, a sharply shortened version of the peace keeper conduct in a crisis. Don't let your emotions get in the way of what you're doing, but don't forget that they're there, and _never_ forget that your actions towards yourself and any victims should come from your spark.

So he stood up slowly, picked his way through the few scattered crystal shards that had reached this far and the melted, sooty pieces from the Assembly that littered the ground and then knelt by the offlined Flicker. He turned him around and made sure his helm rested on a piece of rubble as he interlaced his hands and rested them over his chestplates before he walked back to Bluestreak.

"He'll be okay until the medics get here now. Where would you want me?"

"I'm cold. It's cold. Do you think it's cold? I really hope he will be okay because it's cold and it's dark here and there's so much _smoke_ , that can't be good for our vents can it and it's been so quiet and noisy at the same time because of the--- the..." Bluestreak got stuck again, mouth continuing to move around the words but his vocaliser was stuck in neutral. Prowl sat down beside him and carefully, mindful of the crushed and warped stabilising wings, drew Bluestreak against himself.

There was a sudden noise like feedback and interference and static all in one, high-pitched and jerky and then it didn't stop.

Bluestreak's optics flared completely white and then went back into pink but stayed much too bright and the sound just...

Continued.

And underneath it, as if he just was unable to stop, Bluestreak continued to try to talk, mouth moving around words that remained unspoken, currently only able to give voice to wordless wailing.

Free hand digging into the ground, carving a few shallow scores into it, Prowl delved into what he knew and quietly started to talk.

Talked about Praxus, as the city had been for uncounted vorns before _this_ happened, as it would never be again, but right now that wasn't important. Talked about his training into the peace keepers, talked about friends, collegues... High Alert. Talked about the crystal fields outside of Praxus, wondering if they had been left alone or were ravaged as well, but that, too, wasn't important right now. 

What was important were the cuts in his fingers where the crystal had bit in, was the young frame pressed tightly against his as the crying slowly quieted but didn't _stop_ , was two too-bright and too big optics fastened on his faceplate until rescue forces from Protihex found them and they could leave the broken shell of a million singing crystals and the greyed out frames of friends, colleagues and family behind.

Praxus was no more.

The final, official tally of survivors after the Praxus massacre was twenty six mechs. Nine of those extinguished during life-saving measures on the way from Praxus, and three more later. Eight citizens who had been away on business or pleasure during the time of the attack could later be added to the surviving tally.

Twenty two surviving citizens of Praxus City proper, out of a population of millions.

As Prowl had overheard someone harshly snap in an irate whisper while they were flying away from Praxus; "How many dead? Why don't you ask about how many _survivors_ instead, because that number, let me tell you, _is far easier to count_!"

In a way, it would be an omen for things to come, even if no other city state suffered the same sort of crushing wipe-out that Praxus did... except, later, Iacon, but there were still more survivors able to crawl out of that wreckage.


End file.
